Concept: A VESC supplier minus the profits

ESK8 Electronics
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So we have some nay sayers and we have some believers. All of the company’s youve listed above @cmatson have started out the same way. By contacting suppliers and getting the ball rolling. Im not saying that youll have a VESC at your front door tomorrow but maybe in a few months if you need one, you can just order it and itll come in a few days rather than months between orders.

@treenutter If stocks of VESC’s were kept on hand then future waiting times are eliminated. Also this is no for profit meaning cheaper prices for all. Onloop maybe the best way to go for a one time order, but what about next month? or in 6 months? were not going to be able to scrape up 100 VESC’s everytime. If he can sell them for $70 each at 100 pcs then they must be cheaper than that (marginally) to create and sell.

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And whats so terrible about adding another non profit supplier to the mix? controlled by E-boarders.

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@barajabali I only contact component suppliers, I still manufacture these gems myself. Be sure you work in some donations into the final cost for Vedder. :wink:

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I was actually going to edit my post because yes you do do them yourself which puts you apart from the rest. And of course. im not trying to gain any money from this so donations can be as high as people are comfortable paying.

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All good points @barajabali. I think there is some confusion caused by what we are calling your idea… when I think of a “group buy” effort, I think of a group of people pooling their collective interest in a product to negotiate a better price through a bulk order, just like we did recently with our 18650 group buy that @JLabs and @delta_19 set up.

It sounds like you are thinking of setting up a company that will manage a multi-order contract with manufacturers; but done in a not-for-profit manner. Sort of like an eskate cooperative (or a co-op as my grocery store is called).

So ya, if you want to start something new like that, I think it sounds cool! But it sounds like it is greater in scope and purpose than a “group buy,” which could be awesome!

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The 18650 idea was actually my idea too. Delta just created the thread, jlabs organized it

Ill modify the thread title so it doesn’t sound like a group buy.

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Oh ha,my apologies that I failed to credit you @barajabali. It’s easy to lose track! I like that you’re thinking creatively about how to harness the power of the community!

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Thank you sir! my goal is to make parts for these amazing machines much easier to get to and cheaper to buy!

Do you like the thread name? any suggestions on it?

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@barajabali I like it. You could even give it a subtitle like: “Let’s create an Esk8 Cooperative Manufacturing Effort”

The ECME!

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Im contacting companies to gauge interest. Cheap VESC’s for all is the plan. Imagine a world where you can buy a VESC for 60 bucks. thats a world i want to live in lol

Wish i could find a company who is familiar with ESC’s. Most of those companies are not in the U.S. Im looking for a U.S based company.

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Can some one help me find each product number for the parts?

I’ve found the gerber files and such but to get a quote I’ll need the item names and numbers. I have a serious lead on a supplier.

I’m going with a first run of 100 orders

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You can find the BOM in the master.zip

Get ready for some shockingly high prices. Vedder spec’s the VESC with premium components. You will need to use garbage components to get down to $60 per VESC.

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I’m willing to pay up to 70 or more

Thanks

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Ive contacted alot of these 3rd party company from us, china, netherlands up to indonesia. The cheapest with decent build you can get is from china - indonesia.

Since I am from Indonesia by origins and my uncle own a large company manufacturing diesel generator, I could found and use their conncetions to manufacture esc.

VESC manufacturing is expensive in terms components, the lowest I could get with minimum effort and price as I remembered is around 70 - 80 usd for about 100 orders exc caps, heat shrink and cable. I could even ask firmware installation for free. When there are more price goes lower each time with modifications that can be applied ie adding plastic or metal cover around vesc. When constant manufacturing is at hand, can have special assembly lines that can produce up to 3000 vesc in a day.

What is nice is that price for fixing broken vesc is only abou 10-30usd each exc shipping. The best part about paying this is that you get brand new Vesc instead of repair the broken piece and send you back the item.

I could get more specific numbers ofc, but I stopped there as I dont have the time yet to further process this. However if some people are interested, I could get some note.

The crazy part that I could push further is that I could even do some improvement on VESC through some engineers in my uncle factory and or the vesc assembly line if things get serious.

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Yes thank you for that I need some positivity here.

I’ve been told that if the caps were put onto the board instead of being hand soldered on the ores then it would save a significant amount of money per esc. That would require a slight redesign. Please get some figures from whole ever you can I’ll compare with my numbers.

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You need to do one order from Mouser and one from Element14. Mouser doesn’t have all the parts.

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Great idea, A LOT OF WORK… Not to mention money output… I am totally in to buy 2 or 4… But how would you sell 100? For no profit… You would have to put all of the money upfront… and then hope you sell them all to make no money… An if u decide u want to make money for all of your work, you will need to pay Vedder… (Not sure what his policy is for his designs)… Like I said I would buy some… But selling 100 and what if you get them and there is a defect?? All of your money is gone… Good luck and let me know if this goes through… I am interested to see what the future holds…

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I say you should go for it, only then you will understand how complex, costly, annoying, painful & risky it is… yolo

Just remember one tiny mistake and your entire order can be worthless… its only money though! maybe $7 or $8K worth of parts & labor down the drain, so if you are willing to loose that it’s a risk worth taking.

I am onto about my 5 or 6th batch now & 4th supplier & 3rd country of manufacture… every single order/supplier has had some issue that takes hours-&-hours & many-many $$$ to resolve…

If the supplier says it will take 4 weeks to produce it actually means 8-10 weeks, assuming there are no shortages on components, which there always is. Add another 4 weeks if you want samples first. Each sample will probably cost $300 Each

Also, after delivery of your VESC product, you will now be responsible (24/7) for ensuring every single person’s ‘experimental’ DIY electric skateboard works perfectly & if you can’t fix it people will start defaming you and dishing shit on you & probably demanding a full refund.

Other VESC suppliers will instantly hate you and start claiming that you are incompetent & your vesc is rubbish. Other fanboy forums members will also jump on the shaming bandwagon and start publicly announcing to the world that your product is rubbish too, mostly cause they can’t work out how to use it themselves. Even though there’s nothing actually wrong with the product.

You will write many articles & make countless videos to help people but it won’t matter… you are the supplier and everything is your fault. Even if the customer clearly shorts it out themselves!

Before all this happens a large portion of your customers will also probably get pissed off waiting and put in credit card chargebacks or PayPal disputes to pull their investment just before you need to pay your supplier.

If you are really unlucky they will wait until they get the product in hand then put in a PayPal dispute, this way they get the product & get their money back too! I call it fraud but Paypal always favors the buyer.

Once you get through the 20 or 30 emails each day asking for a firm delivery date, you will have time to sit back and realise you did this all for free! in fact you may have lost some coin along the way.

so yeah go for it!

meanwhile @chaka & I will sit back and count our massive fortune from selling VESC… NOT!

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Well then, I will think that I will stick with the usual suppliers.

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If you read the topic it’s not about saving money. It’s about having another supplier to keep up with demand